Rip van Granger
by pstibbons
Summary: Hermione returns from two decades trapped in a time crystal to a world where her fiance Harry is married to Ginny. Not wanting to stir things up, she decides to make a new life of her own. But a Snorkack and Teddy Lupin have other ideas. HHr - eventually.
1. Chapter 1

It was a dark and stormy night*.

Very stormy, in fact.

One of those storms that goes down in history, in tales, in the bottom of alcoholic drinks that make moonshine vodka look like breast milk.

One of those storms that make writers wet (regardless of vicinity), Hollywood directors salivate, and their Visual Effects artists drop their heads in despair.

One of those storms that reaches out into the depths of the oceans like a rabid niffler and picks up random pieces of junk (squids, fish, anchors, buried treasure, immensely smelly old boots hosting a microbiologist's paradise) and brings them to the surface. Some of them reach the beach.

Dum. De. Dum.

The storm is over now. There is a squid on the beach. It's a small one. And dead and destined for a bright future in a Chinese restaurant.

However, there are none in the vicinity, certainly none close enough to get here before the small squid becomes a feast for the gulls and various little creatures burrowed in the sand.

Forget the squid, then. It's not interesting.

Curious word, interesting.

May you live in interesting times.

May you meet interesting people.

There is absolutely no way in hell that the small woman on the beach is interesting. Even if she is completely dry. Even if she is heaving and drawing huge breaths that suggest she hasn't been doing it for a couple of centuries.

Wait.

What?

Hmm. Actually, if she hasn't been breathing for a couple of centuries, then she would be interesting.

But it's only been two or three decades, so that's not interesting.

Still, she's the only thing on the beach that's moving, and since it's still a few hours before the soaps start on the telly, we might as well keep watching.

There's a large crystal a few feet from her. It's cracked.

No connection to the uninteresting woman whatsoever.

Which might make it interesting.

Perhaps a closer look will help.

Besides, the woman has gone unconscious again. She's dressed in a fading yellow t-shirt and comfortable black cargo pants, and therefore has no sense of interesting fashion taste. Never mind the fact that her clothes are dry despite her having emerged from the water's depths - she is fundamentally _un_interesting.

Forget about her.

Or else.

Or else something. Never mind what, that's not your concern. If you can't recognize a good threatening threat when you see one, you have no right to be unthreatened.

And get those damn eyebrows down.

There's still a crystal here, and if you don't stop smirking, you won't be told what it is.

Silent now? Good. Remain that way. Virtuous, that is. Silence is a virtue, even outside movie theaters.

It is an old storage crystal. You can tell - that's a generic you, mind, not a _you_ you - by the markings near its edges. You can also tell that it's a not a genuine Ashekeri crystal, but a cheap knock-off. Probably made in some backwater place like Maputo or London.

So maybe the woman is interesting after all. She must have been stored in it. For twenty years, maybe thirty. Perhaps that was longer than her captor intended. More likely, shorter.

Still, she's probably going to die on the beach anyway, so it's hardly relevant.

* * *

_* Phrase copyright Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1830. Also see the works of C. M. Schulz, 1965._

* * *

It is common knowledge, admittedly to an uncommon few in 2020 (that's a year, not hindsight), that the absence of Chinese takeout within delivery distance does not imply the absence of humans.

This would explain why we are in a house now, watching an elderly - but spry! active! capable of causing major owies! and making Beef Welly to die for! - couple take care of our uninteresting washed up brunette.

Ours? Wait. She's not _ours_. We only own, have, are in possession of interesting things, people, personalities. See above.

It's a cliched scene, the old woman sitting on the side of her bed trying to feed the young woman some broth, the old man standing in the doorway radiating concern.

This takes the concept of Uninteresting to new heights.

* * *

Banks. Banks are cool. Lots of animals come here, and drink, and feed, sometimes on each other.

Sadly, this is a goblin bank and not a river bank. The only thing cool here has to do with the temperature control.

And while the goblins would probably - in another age - be perfectly happy to attack their human clientele, this is not considered proper behaviour nowadays. Bad for the Corporate Goblin Image and all that.

Damn. It's her again.

Still, it's an uninteresting woman in an uninteresting place. Guaranteed to be uninteresting.

With that established, we may as well watch.

She's looking better than the last time we saw her. Short hair, alert eyes, firm chin, strong strides as she marches to the end of a line. She observes everyone as she waits in line.

Most people here are dressed in a Muggle manner and using those little communication devices. No wonder she's watching them. Technology has come a long way since she was last flesh and blood.

Now she's talking to the bubbly teenager in front of her, who seems most willing to tell her all about her new Zygonis PI-413. Or maybe it's a Genie G9. (It's not like someone like you would know the difference.) She seems impressed by its myriad functions, though perhaps not for the reasons the teenager thinks.

Perhaps a surface scan of her thoughts is in order.

Oh.

She's British. That explains a lot, crappy storage crystal making included. She's impressed by the fact that an electronic device working at all in a magical bank. That problem was solved fifty years ago. But Britain, being the primitive anti-Muggle country it is, never bothered investing much in the wards that made that possible.

Well, she'll learn. This isn't Merry Olde England (or Scotland or Wales or that really cool place that noone calls GeorgeBestLand even though they should).

She finally gets to the front of the line, having been given a crash course in modern telecommunications and jargon by the mile-a-minute poster child for Teen Witch Hourly.

She has no identification on her but her blood, but that is all the goblins need. Apparently she has an account here, here being the bank, even if the original branch was far, far, far away. If the goblin is surprised by the fact that this is the first time it's been accessed in years, he shows no signs of it. At least no signs that a pitiful human can recognize.

Perhaps she's not so pitiful after all, because she mentions something about 'It's a long story' and even shares a laugh with the differently figured sentient being. An old marm elsewhere in the bank faints, but noone notices, except for the guy in the line behind her, who rudely takes her place before bending down to offer assistance.

* * *

It had been a hard month for Hermione. Just five weeks ago, she'd been a happy young woman, engaged to the love of her life. The war was over, she didn't have to be constantly on guard any more. And that had cost her. So much.

That _bitch_ - she'd trusted _her_! - had caught her unawares. Trapped her. For twenty effing years. And the bitch had won.

Her fiance hadn't waited for her. She could hardly blame him - and didn't - he'd been told she was dead, according to the news reports. Everyone thought she was dead. He'd waited three years before he'd married someone else. But much as her head knew he wasn't to blame, her heart was still angry. Broken.

She wondered if 'Heartbreak for Dummies' had been written yet. The number of Dummies books must surely have multiplied exponentially over the years. Still, it was unlikely that 'Heartbreak for Dummies That Have Been Asleep For Decades' was among the new titles.

The worst thing was - of all people Harry Potter could have married, did it have to be the fangirl? Perhaps Ginny had grown up a little. Hermione hoped so. Harry was a good man, if a little slow on the emotional uptake (Dursleys and Dumbles be Damned!) and she had hoped he would end up with someone who wanted _Harry_ and not the Boy Who Lived. She would have recommended Luna herself, for all the nonsense that the girl spouted.

Well.

Going to say hello to her former lover wasn't an option. He was a family man now, happily married by all accounts. It would destabilize his family - his kids. She would not play the role of home breaker. That sort of the role was reserved for the _bitch_ - who had now got everything she wanted and would never get punished.

Hermione felt a smackerel of remorse. She liked dogs. She should stop insulting them by comparing them to the b--

* * *

The brunette Brit sits on the park bench. She is eating a kebab. She seems to be enjoying it. Perhaps she's never had one before. It's not a healthy food, she seems the healthy type.

How would I know that?

I know everything.

Everything that's worth knowing. If I don't know it, it ain't worth knowing.

I wonder what she's thinking about.

Surface scan... gorram! ... she's got mental shields up. Occlumency, most likely, judging by the nature of her mental walls. She must have detected the previous scan.

Well, there's only one thing for it.

Ask her.

* * *

Hermione was wiping her face with a napkin when she saw it.

Blue furry creature at twelve o'clock. Fox with wings. Translucent. Shimmering.

Luna had showed her books of imaginary creatures once.

The fox had horns too. Very crumpled looking horns.

Oh fuckity crap.

This was bad.

She put her head in her hands and groaned. As she was still holding a messy damp napkin, this was a singularly bad idea.

* * *

How unusual. The normal reaction when he showed himself to humans was for them to squeal, ignore him, or - most commonly - have another drink.

Not to go muttering, over and over again, "Luna's never going to let me hear the end of this."

Her short hair was now unhappily mixed with cucumber sauce from the napkin. He waved a paw to vanish it.

Perhaps an introduction was in order.

In her mother tongue. As was customary.

"Good afternoon, Miss Granger," he said in Welsh.

* * *

Hermione looked up. The fox - snorkack! - was speaking.

"Hi," she muttered. "I don't suppose you know Luna Lilandra Lovegood, do you?"

The snorkack cocked his head. "No. Friend of yours?"

"Never mind," sighed Hermione. "You're a figment of my imagination, aren't you?"

"Your imagination isn't this good."

The witch blinked. "You don't exist."

"Yet here I am."

"I wonder what they put in that kebab?" mused Hermione.

"What were you thinking about ten minutes ago?"

"Maybe they put hallucinogens in all food nowadays. The new MSG?"

"Hello?"

"Maybe people are so bored nowadays that they only eat stuff that makes them see things. I wonder how long it lasts."

It was a sign of her general out-of-it-ness that Hermione didn't notice that the snorkack was in her face till his snout was inches from her nose. She squealed, leaping up, and entered the lists of Crazy People To Avoid in the minds of more than one of the people walking by.

"Now," said the fox-like creature, "why don't we take this little conversation somewhere a little less public, hm?"

Hermione blinked. "You mean, follow you?"

"You got anything else on your social calendar, ducks?"

Hermione considered this. She was already getting over the possibility of a certain ditzy blonde not being totally nuts. It was nothing compared to the shock of being locked away for decades, when you stopped to think about it. She looked at the snorkack again. It was still blue, winged, and foxy. All of which clearly inspired trust in her pink-brown-skinned acrophobic feline-inclined self.

"Promise not to eat me?"

"I can't eat you if I don't exist."

"Oh, alright then."

* * *


	2. Chapter 2

Hermione followed the snorkack to what seemed to be a noisy and raucous pub. Her first impression of it was that it was the kind of pub that the most irresponsible of alcoholic fathers begged their kids to stay away from. The wooden name board above its doorway said 'Abandon' and seemed to be broken off. She had a feeling the missing words began with 'Hope'.

Hermione's second impression of it wasn't positive either. People being thrown out of pubs generally don't give good impressions.

Her third impression didn't help. The person who had landed just a few feet from her was quite dead.

Hermione grasped her new wand tightly.

Her fourth impression - ten seconds later - was of the corpse standing up and waving a fist angrily at the pub, swearing in some unknown Slavic language.

Hermione's face was starting too look somewhat devoid of blood.

Which was probably a good thing, because the next person to exit the pub was a vampire. It flew through the window at the corpse. The pair was soon rolling on the ground together.

Hermione's eyes widened, as did her gaping mouth.

"Oy!" shouted the snorkack at the struggling pair. "Get a room!"

Hermione glanced at her companion. "Are they - "

"Ignore them," he sighed. "That's Alaina and Boris. They absolutely refuse to believe that vampires and zombies can't be involved in a fulfilling meaningful relationship. Now get in here."

He entered the pub. Hermione, gripping her wand _very_ tightly, followed him uneasily.

The pub was shocking. It was supposed to look at something out of the 16th century, but it looked more like a cocktail party in a stately manor. Waitresses and waiters glided around, each with three or four trays of wine and munchies hovering around them. The guests - clients? pub dwellers? - were of varied shape, size, and sartorial class.

She moved closer to the snorkack.

"Jamaica!"

She was going to need eye drops after this, that much was obvious. Her eyes couldn't get any wider. They were being approached by a troll.

A troll with a broad smile.

A troll with a brain.

A troll with a pitcher of - alcohol, presumably - instead of a club.

A troll in an Armani suit with a blonde chick on each arm. They had identical yellow tracksuits. One of them was pale enough to be a vampire and probably was. The other was vaguely familiar - though not someone she'd ever met before.

"Alphonse!" yipped the snorkack happily, leaping at the troll. As he leaped, he morphed, into a larger, humanoid figure. Still with the wings and fox face though. And no clothes.

Fortunately, Hermione didn't think about that.

Unfortunately, this happy state of affairs didn't last.

"Who's the human?" asked Alphonse. Hermione hadn't realized trolls had names. At least not ones that didn't sound like 'Ug' and 'Grrp' and 'Ugug'.

"Jamaica?" asked the pale bimbo with a smirk, causing the four of them to break into hysterical laughter. Hermione felt rather left out.

"You really should offer the gods a sacrifice for that one, Katarina dear," said Jamaica. "No, I did not make her. I found her. Now she's following me."

"Another stray?" asked Bimbo Number Two.

Hermione resisted the temptation to Hex her current company.

"What's your name, Missy?" asked Alphonse.

"Her - er - "

"Her name is Hermione Granger," answered Jamaica for her. "She disappeared into a storage crystal in 1999 and - ow! - "

"Please excuse us for a moment," said a Hermione with gritted teeth. "Me and - er - Jamaica here need to have a little _talk_ -"

She dragged the bipedal snorkack off, leaving a bemused trio behind. Katarina began to snicker.

"Jammy sure does pick his strays," muttered Alphonse. He turned to look at the woman on his right. "Kat, go drop some eaves. Like you were planning to do anyway, you inbred gossip whore."

"Sure thing, O Great And Munificent Boss," said the vampire with a grin before spelling herself, morphing into a smaller form and taking off.

Alphonse let loose a stream of muttered grunts that would make a dockyard troll take notes.

"Explain to me," he griped, "why I tolerate that overgrown bat."

His remaining companion didn't bother to reply, as she was busy with that modified Muggle pocket device that she was so fond of. Alphonse sighed a deep troll sigh. Well, he could hardly blame her. He paid her well for her research capabilities.

"Got anything so far?" he asked. He began rummaging in his picket for a cigar.

"Yes sir," she replied. "She's a British witch, born in 1980. So if what Jamaica says is true, she was in a storage crystal for a couple of decades, judging by her youthful appearance."

Alphonse nodded. Also, he'd found a cigar. His favourite troll cigar.

"Have you heard of Harry Potter? And - sir - your doctor wouldn't approve - limestone is addictive -"

Alphonse lit up and took a few puffs, ignoring her protests.

"Potter - Potter - ah, that kid who took out that pathetic little Dark wizard - Foulthemutt, was it?"

"Voldemort, sir. It was quite a big deal in Britain at the time."

"The Brits are wimps. He barely killed two hundred." He seemed to remember something. "No offence."

"Yes, sir. Nevertheless, in the island's small and backward society, it was a big deal. He took over the British Ministry, but Potter - a suicide weapon created by Albus Dumbledore - destroyed him in battle with a great deal of good fortune."

"Hnnh. Potter's still alive, isn't he? Not very successful as a suicide weapon, if he had the audacity to forgo the suicide bit."

"Potter died and was resurrected during the battle, sir."

Alphonse raised three of his four eyebrows. "Oh?" He frowned. "What's all this to do with this Hemini Ganja person, anyway?"

"Hermione Granger. She was his other half. A very smart witch. They were engaged when she was reported killed by werewolves." She looked up at her employer uneasily. "There is more. Do you wish to hear it, sir?"

"No, it's shiny. Let's wait till the flying rodent comes back."

"Yes, sir."

"There is one more thing I am curious about, though."

"Sir?"

"What's this 'Sir' business? Did you lose a bet with Kat?"

"Yes, sir."

"Is there more involved in this - bet?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well?"

"I'll be addressing you as ma'am tomorrow, sir."

* * *

"How could you just tell them that?" huffed Hermione. She wanted very much to twist the snorkack's ear, but it was too high for her to reach.

"Tell them what, Granger?"

Hermione glared. Jamaica actually had the audacity to look - amused!

"About my - being trapped in there! And my name!"

"You are not Hermione Granger? You were not stored away for twenty one years?"

"Well yes, but - "

"You have a problem with the truth?"

Hermione made to protest. Then she caught herself. Had she a problem with the truth? Well, she was certainly not a noble person, and had been spouting lies ever since she told her kindergarten classmate that she hadn't turned his hair blue after he grabbed her Major Matt Mason doll.

"Look," she said, her rage eroded, "I just don't want word of this to get back to Harry. He's happy where he is. Kids and everything. I don't want to muck that up."

Jamaica considered this. "So you wish to keep your former lover from the truth because you believe it will hurt him?"

Hermione flinched. It sounded awfully Dumbledorish of her. Not the lover bit - ew! - but the secrets bit.

"Do you think Alphonse and the girls are the kinds of folks your Mr Potter is likely to meet?"

Hermione considered this. She couldn't tell, really. Who knew how much Harry had changed? But then again, he was a thousand kilometres away. And it was too late now to change things. "Fair enough. But I'm going to have go with a different name." She cocked her head. "Speaking of which, how did you get called Jamaica?"

"The island was named after me," replied Jamaica, his voice dead-pan.

Hermione giggled. "Good one." Later though, she would wonder if the snorkack really had been joking.

Jamaica shrugged. "Are you quite done with your tantrum now?"

Hermione shrugged as well. "I suppose."

"Good. We can have a little talk then." He looked up, to where a small bat was hovering under a disillusion charm. _"Privately."_

* * *

In another part of the world, Teddy Lupin was excited. You could tell by the fact that his hair was bright red, if he had had any hair.

It was a curse, really, being a partial metamorphmagus. He could only control a few aspects of it, and while some of those aspects were decidedly beneficial (particularly for under cover work), it was a far cry from the stories he had heard of his mother.

At least Tonks - everyone called her Tonks, regardless of what her official name was - could control her hair colour. He could not. It perfectly reflected his emotions, which was absolutely terrible for important things like poker and undercover work and life in general. Which was why he'd been going Jean-Luc ever since he was twelve.

But he had followed his - legendary, to him - mother's footsteps in one way. He was, as of twenty nine hours and six minutes ago (not that anyone was counting), a fully qualified Auror. Admittedly, a rookie. But that would change.

He was rather proud of himself.

He had even managed to arrive to the restaurant on time.

He normally had dinner with his godfather once a week. This week, owing to the celebratory nature of things, it was at a high end restaurant - in New York, no less! - instead of a dingy little pub in England.

Not that he minded dingy little pubs. He was a great fan of all things dingy. He considered dinginess to be an art form.

But it was nice to be in a non-dingy place on special occasions. It was Different, just like Special was Different.

He looked at his watch.

Harry Potter usually only five minutes late for everything. Now he was fifteen. Teddy didn't think that this departure from tradition counted as Special.

He looked at the crossword in front of him, kindly provided by the restaurant.

He looked at his watch again, and wondered for a fraction of a second if it had stopped.

He looked up. Ah! There was his godfather.

"Sorry I'm late!" puffed Harry, nodding to the waiter who had led him to their table. He was wearing his favourite black leather trenchcoat. It was dingy. And, Harry had mentioned to him once, nearly as old as he was.

"Not a problem," replied Teddy, instantly forgiving. "Any problems at your end?"

"The usual," grunted his godfather.

"Ah." It was one of those Trouble in Paradise situations, if Paradise was the right word. Teddy knew it wasn't, and waited for Harry to change the subject.

"Neville tells me that the rib-eye steak in this place is to die for," said Harry, perusing the menu.

"I thought he was vegetarian?" said Teddy, who didn't know the Head of the Longbottom Family very well. "He seemed quite into the celery the last time I saw him at a Ministry function."

"Oh?" said Harry, surprised. "When was that?"

"A couple of years ago, actually."

"Hnnh. Must have been when Hannah was pregnant again and their weird bond was giving him all the cravings. Trust me, Nev's only vegetarian between meals."

Teddy chortled, and the hovering waiter took the opportunity to take their orders. Teddy had already made his choice while he was waiting.

"How's life in the world of classified stuff, then?" asked Teddy. "I hear Pentrith was trying to get you back into the DMLE."

"Pentrith wishes many things," said Harry solemnly.

"And my first question?"

"Don't make me have to kill you," chuckled Harry. Teddy had been trying to squeeze information about the Department of Mysteries ever since he joined.

"Look, I'm not asking you to spill the beans here. Just one bean. Is that too much to ask?"

Harry looked amused.

"Fine, I'll ask a simple question. What colour are the walls? Surely that's not classified?"

Harry cocked his head. "Teddy, I couldn't even tell you if we had walls."

"You don't have walls?"

"Of course we don't have walls. We don't wear clothes down there either. We all report in to work at nine in the morning, spend the rest of the day smoking Snick till lunch time, play tiddlywinks till two, have a huge orgy at three, and then we all go home at five. The real mystery is that we go home at all."

Teddy glared at his godfather.

"Give it up, Bear," said Harry. "Or I'll start grilling you about the little _arrangement_ you and Victoire have."

Teddy decided to postpone his interrogation.

"How is my niece, anyway?"

Teddy shrugged. "She likes Prague."

"And? That's it?"

"She likes the beer. Shopping's not bad either."

Harry considered this. Victoire Weasley was infamous for her aversion to fashion. It drove Fleur to distraction, Bill to great pride, and both her grandmothers to despair. Then again, Victoire was one of those lucky women who would look good wearing sackcloth and ashes.

"Not shopping for clothes, I presume?"

"You know she hasn't worn a skirt since Hogwarts."

"Fleur might have mentioned it a couple of hundred times."

Teddy grinned. "She says Prague has the best market for rare potions ingredients in Europe."

"Black market?"

Teddy smiled. "Surely you wouldn't think that your sweet innocent niece would sink so low?"

"Victoire? Sweet? Innocent? I beg your pardon?"

Teddy's communicator beeped suddenly, causing Harry to raise an eyebrow. Teddy glanced at it and raised an eyebrow.

"Speak of the devil - it's a text from Vic. She's got some unbelievable news for me, apparently." He shrugged. "Maybe she wore a skirt today."


	3. Chapter 3

* * *

Hermione was tired. Fatigued. Exhausted. Willing to go wherever the currents tossed her.

Right now, they had tossed her in front of a winged blue man with a fox head. She glanced at his hands. They were paws, but there was an opposable - she'd call it a thumb.

He was also still quite naked. Fortunately, the table they were sitting at did not have a glass top.

In front of her was an Irish coffee, since she needed a strong drink.

In front of him was a large bowl with three helpings of tapioca pudding. It had initially contained five.

"What do you plan to do with yourself now?" asked Jamaica suddenly.

Hermione had been thinking of little else, and it showed on her face.

"If it's any consideration," he offered. "My friends consider me a good sounding board."

Hermione frowned. "I don't get it. What's in it for you? Why would you help me?"

"I'm easily amused. And easily bored. By next week, I'll have found someone new to interest me. This week, it's you. You may as well take advantage of me. I have connections. I can help you."

Hermione looked shocked. She was, too. And her mind was feverishly looking for a catch.

"Want me to eat this pudding somewhere else?" he offered.

Hermione considered this, and sighed. "No. Not really. I'm very tired. I could use a friend." She looked up at him. "Even if it just for a week."

Jamaica shrugged, and took another large spoonful of pud.

"I'm going to Australia. My parents live there, or at least they did when I - when I disappeared. Maybe I can find them." She didn't sound very hopeful.

"They will surely be delighted to have you back from the dead."

Hermione rubbed her forehead. "That's the thing, see. They don't know I'm dead. They don't know I exist."

Jamaica looked curious.

"There was a war in Britain in the 90s, against Voldemort. I was a - a friend of someone important in it. Harry. Harry Potter. That placed me in danger. And my parents. I modified their memories and sent them to Australia."

"With their consent."

"No."

She cringed at the look Jamaica gave her. "That was wrong," he said. "It fits in with your general aversion to truth."

She cringed again.

"I should have told them, explained to them. Maybe they would have agreed to it."

"My experience with humans suggests that no non-psychotic parent would go into safety leaving their child in a war."

"So you understand! They would have stayed - I couldn't do that to them. Why I had to do it? To protect them?"

"No. If it was their choice to die for you, they had the right to do so."

"No. Yes. No." Hermione groaned. "It's done. It's what I did. Anyway, after the war, Harry and I went to try and sort them out. But we found that we could not bring back their memories without serious brain damage." She looked at him, eyes fiery with hurt. "Be happy. I was punished for my sins. They are alive. It's a price I'm willing to pay."

Jamaica ate some more pudding. He could probably bring back their memories, and certainly knew someone who could. But he didn't think the human sitting in front of him deserved that. Yet. However, she also didn't deserve to know his take on the matter, to have hope dangled in front of her.

"So you'll head off the Australia, look for your parents, see if they're alive. If they are, you will feel delight. And sadness that you cannot join them. You will weep. You will grieve. And then you will have to rebuild your life. How do you plan to do this?"

Hermione looked at the bottom of her whiskey-laden coffee ruefully.

"Leave ten New Koruna in the glass, and tap it four times with your wand. It gets replaced by a new cup."

A minute later, a happy Hermione was looking at the glorious white over russet concoction in her glass.

Two minutes later, the pair were sitting a lot closer to the wall.

"Do you lot _know_ the meaning of the word privacy?" groaned Jamaica.

"Vix here tells me it's a small village in Indonesia," answered a chipper Alphonse, who was seemed overly pleased to be squeezing the snorkack into the wall. Fortunately, the leather bench they were sitting on was long enough to handle someone of his - stature.

"I thought you had silencing wards up?" hissed Hermione, who was now sitting next to two yellow-tracksuited figures.

"He does," said Katarina, her fangs gleaming. "We couldn't hear anything. That's why we _had_ to join you."

"Ever considered asking us?" muttered Jamaica.

"Course not," said Alphonse calmly. "You'd tell us to go away."

"Go away," suggested Hermione.

"My point exactly," said the troll sagely. "So, Miss Granger. You planning to visit your old friends in Britain?"

Hermione gave her blue companion a questioning look. It galled her to find herself doing so, but she was effectively a stranger in a strange land, and he'd been the first to offer - well, not quite help, or even a shoulder to cry on, but - an ear. She knew the value of friends who listened. And even if he'd be gone in a few days, he was here now. And her mind had decided to trust him. So if he said trust them, she'd trust them.

Jamaica shrugged. "Tell them what you will."

Hermione groaned internally.

"Maybe he can help," continued Jamaica. "He might look like something a hippogriff threw up, but he really is quite the softie."

Hermione looked at the troll appraisingly. The real estate mogul with arrest warrants in eleven jurisdictions looked his best to look soft and sweet. His efforts were ruined by his two female companions bursting into laughter as a result.

* * *

Teddy's apartment was small, dingy, well stocked with food. This week, it was in Liverpool, since he had tickets to watch the Merseyside derby.

It was not the sort of place you brought a girl home to. Unless she was someone you had grown up with and was your best friend. It also helped if she was your wife and she had chosen the bed herself. It was the only furniture in Teddy's portable pocket apartment that wasn't second hand.

As far the extended Weasley family knew, Theodore John Lupin and Victoire Annette Delacour-Weasley weren't together.

Despite being married and all.

They'd tied the knot, the Muggle way, at sixteen. In secret. On a dare. A misunderstood dare. In Gretna. With only their closest friends to witness it.

They just hadn't gotten around to getting divorced yet. She didn't mention it. He didn't mention it. One of the witnesses might have mentioned it once, but was immediately Hexed into submission.

The first couple of years, they tried dating other people. They really did. It never worked out. The first thing each of them did after a date was come home to their spouse and moan about how horrible it was. Followed by other - activities.

It was annoying, really, the fact that they couldn't live without each other. They got used it, though, in the way that a fish got used to its dependence on water - in other words, without ever noticing.

They couldn't bear the thought of the family finding out. Too many galleons would change hands, and the teasing would be incredible. They were rebels. They would not give in to the evil romanticists!

They found they could pull off a public "I Hate You!" routine with each other very easily.

Ironically, it was that passionate hatred that got them caught. Uncle Harry, famous for his emotional inadequacy (at least in the World According To Ginny Potter), was the only one who saw it. The glances within the glares. The touches within the slaps. The smirks within the sneers. The appreciative nods when an insult was particularly creative.

He'd given them a pair of communicator and Joint Portkey rings one Christmas. It meant either could be with the other at moment's notice, no matter where they were in the world. It was quite embarassing, since he'd packaged them inside a couple of baby rattles. His public story was that they would always be kids to him.

Victoire had pressed him once, asking why he never teased them about it, why he never told anyone.

He'd looked at her, looked somewhere far off in the distance, looked back at her, patted her on the shoulder, and told her to renew the charms on the rings every year. They didn't last forever, you see. Nothing ever did.

* * *

"You're up late this morning," said Teddy. He was sitting at the apartment's only table, forking some omelette into his mouth and appreciating the blonde wearing (only) his shirt.

Victoire yawned and grabbed his coffee.

He didn't bother to protest. And since she was going to steal his breakfast anyway, he pushed his plate towards her and got up to fix himself another one. And get a fresh cup of Colombian.

"I got in at three," she said when she felt sufficiently awake. "Alphonse met a girl and decided to get chatty."

"Let me guess. She was trying to sell him two miles of Madagascan coastline and he was trying to lower the price to that of a box of toothpicks."

"That is sooo last week," said the one-eighth Veela, digging into her stolen omelette. "And it was Mauritius, not Madagascar."

"There are parts of Mauritius left to sell?" he asked, genuinely surprised.

"There's not. She was a con."

"She's pushing up daisies now, then?"

Victoire shrugged, and her husband didn't press the matter.

"So ---" he said as he finally finished making his replacement omelette, "What was that unbelievable news you had for me?"

Whatever Teddy might have expected to hear, it wasn't something which could destroy the Weasley family. But as a solemn - and slightly scared - Victoire explained it, it was was difficult to see how anything but a huge coverup could save it.

The most important person in the extensive Weasley clan had committed an Azkaban-worthy crime twenty one years ago. And if justice was served, some children would be greatly hurt - to the extent that they might even feel suicidal.

He didn't remember anything in the Auror Ethics course that dealt with _this_ situation.

* * *

Meanwhile, in a small hotel in Prague, a woman wept for the loss of her love, her dreams, for a past that had been stolen from her.

* * *


End file.
